Trade

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

They warn the incoming Democratic House may make passage "significantly more difficult."

More ministers resign as May faces the axe.

The new House Democrats have to figure out how to square opposition to Trump with skepticism about free trade.

Plus, one easy way to kill a platform.

Today on the Daily Standard Podcast, reporter Haley Byrd and deputy online editor Jim Swift join host Charlie Sykes to discuss the latest with the Kavanaugh nomination and Trump's recently inked NAFTA remix. Will the "USMCA" get a vote in Congress?

The pact should be met with a degree of both optimism and skepticism

Poised to miss a key deadline for a renegotiated NAFTA, the White House threatens to leave Canada in the cold.

The president threatened to leave Canada behind in renegotiating NAFTA. But lawmakers doubt he’s allowed to do that.

Hardly an overhaul, but it could have been much worse.

The Wisconsin Republican and tariff skeptic will meet with the White House trade adviser on Tuesday, while congressional efforts to reclaim trade authority continue to stall.

In an Iowa metal shop, the booming economy is hiding the effects of Trump’s tariffs.

Plus, why one vet thinks it's time to retire the Blue Angels. (He's wrong.)

The latest, paying down the national debt, met mixed reception from congressional Republicans (when it wasn't muted altogether).

Hosted by Charlie Sykes

The president campaigned on the idea that the pact was a “total disaster.” Can he do better?

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

"Well, I call it stupid."

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

There are better ways than tariffs to get concessions.

Plus, D.C. dive bars are dying.

Today on the Daily Standard Podcast, Chris Deaton and Ethan Epstein join host Charlie Sykes to discuss what's next for the Democratic party now that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may represent its future, as well as President Trump's relationship with three very different men: Kim Jong un, Vladimir…

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

Nothing good is likely to come from Trump’s tariffs.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

Congress could in theory have a greater say on tariffs. Don’t hold your breath.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

"It's an abuse of that authority."

The real action with spies nowadays lies not with Russia but with China.

Republicans are increasingly fed up with Trump’s protectionist trade agenda.

The president surfaces concerns about "infiltration" of his campaign by the FBI.

Looking back at the day that changed the Trump presidency.

Paul Ryan's deadline fast approaches.

An "outsider businessman" looks poised to knock off rising-star politicians in Indiana's GOP Senate primary. And it all has to do with Trump.

The president zigs and zags on tariffs and TPP.

There are two ways of looking at Brexit. One is confusing, the other is clear, and both are true. Many people in Britain would prefer not to look at all at Brexit. They would prefer to undo it by calling a second referendum, or contriving a slow legislative throttling that, like the assassination…

Arizona Republican Senator Jeff Flake introduced legislation Monday to nullify President Donald Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs, calling on his colleagues to rally behind the bill.

The United States welcomes foreign investment. When companies from overseas buy into American firms, they provide a source of money that creates jobs and boosts innovation. But if the investor is Chinese, there is a wrinkle—increasingly, the wary eyes of regulators and intelligence officials want…

President Trump recently announced he would impose a new across-the-board tariff on all steel and aluminum imports into the United States. That was the harshest of three tariff options outlined by the Department of Commerce in a trade investigation report presented to the president.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD had the chance to talk to South Carolina Republican Mark Sanford about President Donald Trump’s proposed steel and aluminum tariffs, which would tax imports at 25 percent and 10 percent, respectively. Sanford, who has represented the state’s 1st District since 2013, ardently…

Republicans in Congress are desperately trying to talk President Donald Trump down from his proposed tariffs, lest they have to consider a legislative check on the White House instead—a move that some lawmakers say isn’t feasible.

House Speaker Paul Ryan is pushing back on President Donald Trump’s announcement that he will impose hefty tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum, his spokeswoman said on Monday.

President Trump threatened to impose tariffs on the European Union, in what would be an economic counter-strike to Europe’s expected response to impending steel tariffs.

To ask coherence of President Trump is to ask too much of a man with the attention span of a tweet, and for whom cognitive dissonance is not something he spends nights losing sleep over. So we have had large tax cuts, putting money into the pockets of consumers, which will enable them to increase…

President Donald Trump on Friday delivered a free-wheeling speech to CPAC, a campaign-style barnburner that went over well with the raucous crowd. And on his way out, he casually got around to the important stuff: major new sanctions on North Korea.

Anyone who hoped that Donald Trump might diverge from his predecessors' penchant for a laundry list of promises must be disappointed.

Returning from Davos, the gathering of the global elite who had never before seen fit to invite this exhibitionist television celebrity, familiar with the bankruptcy courts, to eschew Big Macs in favor of canapés for a few days, Donald Trump faces a more demanding test next Tuesday, when he…

On January 22, President Trump announced the imposition of a 30 percent tariff on imported solar panels and a 20 percent tariff on imported washing machines. The Trade Act of 1974 allows the president to impose duties when an imported product becomes “substantial cause of serious injury” to the…

Kal Ho Naa Ho is one of the most successful Bollywood movies ever. It’s a tragic love triangle among three very attractive Indians that made good inroads outside of the Indian market due to its setting: It all takes place in New York City. A better-known international setting than, say, Mumbai or…

While U.S. politics have witnessed any number of distressing trends in recent years, one of the more disturbing is the decline in support among Republicans for free trade. The rise of Donald Trump, who regularly blamed American economic ills on China and trade deals such as the North American Free…

If Trump set your teeth on edge in 2017, prepare for a grinding 2018. The story coming out of the White House is that the need to garner congressional support for his tax cut forced the president to restrain his reformist-populist-belligerent instincts until his signature legislation was on the…

What happened to Trumpism? Sure, we still get the oh-so-Trumpy tweets, but many of the issues that Donald Trump ran on have been cast to the wayside in the 11 months (it hasn’t even been a year yet!?) of his presidency.

Trump already to the left of Obama on trade? At the Daily Beast, Lachlan Markay has an item on how the Trump White House is welcoming the far-left trade skeptics that Barack Obama's administration left out in the cold. One need only look at the folks President Trump has appointed on trade,…

Whirlpool’s washing machine division has been rapidly losing market share to Korean competitors Samsung and LG. The company’s response is a reflection of the upside-down times we live in and a cautionary tale about interfering with free markets.

Men's studies actually exists, but not for the reason you think. I was confused at first when I saw that a college actually had a men's studies department. The idea of "men's studies" is usually a trope used to bash the existence of "women's studies" and is (usually) not a serious proposal. Yet,…

Circuses feature sideshows and main events. So it is with the circus that performs daily at the Trump White House when it comes to trade policy. The sideshow currently on offer is the renegotiation of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that creates a more-or-less free trade area…

The representatives from Canada and Mexico who came to Washington on Wednesday to discuss the North American Free Trade Agreement were greeted by U.S. officials taking a hard line on negotiations.

Athens

Athens

Michael Warren is on vacation this week, and Andrew Egger is filling in for him on White House Watch. Michael will be back in the saddle on July 3.

The president remains a protectionist. His administration? Not so much. That is possible because there are two strong and often opposing forces at work in Washington. One is the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, sometime resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The other is the Trump…

Long ago, or at least it seems, before "covfefe" and the Kathy Griffin fiasco, Donald Trump decided it wise to use social media to escalate a spat with Germany.

Speaker Paul Ryan will take advantage of the House recess to lead a bipartisan delegation to the United Kingdom and three other European countries next week to discuss economic and security matters facing NATO member countries, his office announced Wednesday.

Last week's strike on the Syrian airfield from which Bashar al-Assad launched his latest chemical-weapons attack on his own people has somewhat overshadowed President Trump's meeting with Xi Jinping, the president of China. The summit at Mar-a-Lago last Thursday and Friday was the first chance for…

In the final week of the Obama administration, the outgoing president filed a complaint at the World Trade Organization (WTO) accusing China of unfair trade practices. This wasn't a big surprise: Obama averaged one complaint against China every six months throughout his presidency. Indeed, Donald…

Donald Trump says he is for free trade. But it has to be fair trade. He sees himself not as a protectionist but as a protector of American workers from the ravages of unfair competition, somehow defined. In 1964 Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said when he was asked to define pornography, "I…

Back in October, congressman Devin Nunes met with a group of executives from major corporations to talk business. “I was trying to sell them on" the House GOP's tax plan, Nunes says, "explain how it would work and how the economy would grow." There was only one problem: None of the business…

In 1992, in anticipation of the 1997 reversion of the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong to communist Chinese rule, the United States Congress enacted the U.S.-Hong Kong Policy Act. The act made the findings that "the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China,…

Perhaps unsurprisingly, incoming Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer is among the Democrats willing to work with President-elect Trump to pass some of his more "populist" ideas into law. But the tough liberal campaigner issued a blanket statement about cooperating with the new administration.

CNN reports:

That's the easy part. President-elect Donald Trump went on YouTube to announce two of his goals. The first was to show the print and television moguls who have been coming and going from Trump Tower in an effort to work out a modus vivendi with the president-elect that he doesn't need them to get…

During her debate with Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton implored, "please, fact checkers, get to work." Heeding her own call, her boast that while she was seretary of state exports to China increased 50 percent definitely needs to be put in context.

Why hasn't there been more disruption in Congress? Looking at the highly disruptive presidential primary campaign, some analysts are scratching their heads and asking that very question. In primary election after primary election, Republican congressional incumbents—such as Paul Ryan, John McCain,…

The BBC reports:

A surprising German poll showed Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) tied for second place with the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) just before this weekend's regional elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The incumbent Social Democrats are at 28 percent, the CDU and the…

Donald Trump’s campaign for the Republican presidential nomination is based on two issues: immigration and trade. And there's a significant difference between the two. On immigration, Trump capitalized on existing opposition to illegal immigrants. But on trade, he not only created a wave of anger…

President Obama thinks Britain made a mistake by voting to leave the European Union. So does Secretary of State John Kerry. So do most on the left of American politics. Most on the right see Britain’s so-called Independence Day as a sensible democratic decision to shed the protectionist and…

Newt Gingrich, a long-time free trader in Congress and champion of the North American Free Trade Agreement, said Friday that there's something "profoundly wrong" with U.S. trade policy, lending his support to Donald Trump's position on the issue.

President Obama said globalization is an irreversible reality Wednesday, indirectly rebutting GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump's criticism of the United States's participation in international trade deals.

"I'm going to be your champion," Donald Trump declared after he won the California primary last week. "I'm going to be America's champion. Because, you see, this election isn't about Republican or Democrat. It's about who runs this country, the special interests or the people—and I mean the…

President Obama called criticism of a Pacific trade deal "trying to score political points" Monday, countering arguments that the hot-button Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would be bad for the United States.

For all of Donald Trump's seemingly un-Republican rhetoric on trade, much of his skepticism is actually found in the official party platform from the last presidential election. The GOP's 2012 language is thoroughly anti-China, detailed in how a Republican president would approach the Asian nation,…

The "year of the outsider" in this presidential election has also been the year of free trade skeptics. But according to a new poll, the biggest group of them aren't gathered in a hip cafe serving $4 fair-trade dark roasts. That is, unless demographers have missed a mass migration of Republicans to…

This morning, as the White House welcomed Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, the White House passed out American and Canadian flags to guests on the South Lawn.

Hillary Clinton says she comes from “the Clinton school of economics." It's her way of identifying with her husband, Bill Clinton, and suggesting that if elected president she would duplicate the economic success of his presidency.

The Office of the United States Trade Representative has finally released the full text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

There are times when economics is secondary to other policy considerations—not irrelevant, but secondary. Last week, when 12 nations on the Pacific Rim finally agreed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership after years of negotiations, was one such time. This gives President Obama a much-needed victory—if…

The White House is hitting back at Hillary Clinton a week after the Democratic presidential candidate claimed to have looked at the Trans-Pacific Parternship. The trade deal, the White House says, has not been released to the public. Clinton, for her part, claimed last week to have looked at the…

Hillary Clinton is now re-opening the door to support President Obama's trade deal. The same deal she helped negotiate but came out against last week. 

CNN's Anderson Cooper chose Hillary Clinton as the first target of tonight's first Democratic debate.

Greg Mankiw, professor of economics at Harvard, has posed an interesting question on his blog.

President Obama's former top political adviser, David Axelrod, took some shots at Hillary Clinton in a Slate interview from over the weekend. Clinton, Axelrod said, is on "double secret, super probation" after flip-flopping and declining to support Obama's trade bill that she previously championed.

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders slagged his chief rival, Hillary Clinton, for being inconsistent in an interview this morning on NBC News’ Meet the Press. 

Strange as it may seem, Barack Obama has much in common with the storied matchmaker of Jewish legend. This Polish entrepreneur announced to the poverty-stricken rabbi of a poverty-stricken Polish town that she had found a match for his even more poverty stricken, unattractive son – no less than the…

A top Hillary Clinton aide from the State Department talked up the former secretary of state's support for the trade deal just yesterday in an interview with National Public Radio. The aide, who has been defending Clinton's policies publicly, is Anne-Marie Slaughter, the former director of policy…

President Obama said today that the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal would cover "40 percent of the global economy." Obama also revealed that eventually the agreement will be made available to the public.

If Donald Trump becomes president of the United States, Carl Icahn may be his ambassador or chief negotiator to China. Trump made the revelation in an interview this morning on MSNBC:

President Obama in a taped appearance with the Daily's Shows Jon Stewart Tuesday denied that IRS targeted conservatives, an assertion that Stewart then appeared to ridicule him for making.

So we once again have a functioning senate, no longer a prisoner of Harry Reid’s theory of government – if you do not like a bit of legislation, you can keep it – keep it from the floor, keep it from debate, keep it from a vote. That proved to be a ticket to the minority, as disgusted voters…

The top Republican in the Senate is applauding President Obama after the passage of the trade bill.

With Washington quibbling over the finer points of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), many commentators are arguing that lessons of past trade deals, like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), are useful augers for what to…

Senator Jeff Sessions will release this statement in response to Senate's vote to advance the fast-track trade bill:

Senator Jeff Sessions is worried that the adoption of the Trans-Pacific Partnership would lead to an "historic international regulatory Commission" that would eoncmpass 90 percent of the world's GDP. He's concerned that it would "[create] a self-governing and self-perpetuating Commission with…

President Barack Obama met with Senate and House Democrats to push trade, the White House announced this evening.

Hillary Clinton has taken a very nuanced position on the trade debate. But none would call it outright support of the president.  Which, even if you don’t understand exactly where she is today, is not where she was in the recent past.  Forty-five times.

The campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Martin O'Malley is whacking Hillary Clinton today for not taking a firm stand on critical issues in her speech today in New York City. 

Speaker of the House John Boehner took the floor to make the case that Congress should pass Trade Promotion Authority:

Democratic presidential candidate Martin O'Malley is rallying the opposition against President Obama's proposed "fast track" trade law. O'Malley, unlike his rival Hillary Clinton, has voiced strong opposition to the plan.

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz told radio host Hugh Hewitt that he supports fast tracking trade, but isn't sure about how he'll vote on the current bill in Congress. Listen here:

House majority leader Kevin McCarthy laid out the Republicans' game plan for trade votes this week. In short, the memo sent out late last night details the rule votes will be held today, Thursday, and final vote is slated for Friday.

President Obama is thankful the trade deal has passed the Senate. And he wants the House to "follow suit."

Speaker of the House John Boehner is praising the Senate's passage of the trade bill and calling on Democrats to join with Republicans to pass the law in the House.

President Obama wants Congress to send the trade bill to his desk. Right away.

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell told ABC's George Stephanopoulos that President Obama "has done an excellent job" on the trade bill. "We'll pass it later this week," McConnell assured Stephanopoulos .

After being accused of being sexist for calling Senator Elizabeth Warren her first name, President Obama is not backing down. He's still calling her Elizabeth.

President Obama is trying to rally his supporters around his trade bill. But, as the email subject line suggests, he understands there are many critics of the bill: "I understand the skepticism about this."

Democratic senator Sherrod Brown is subtly accusing President Barack Obama of sexism in his attacks on Senator Elizabeth Warren, also a Democrat. 

Senator Elizabeth Warren is tough on President Obama’s ambitious trade deal and the White House doesn’t like it. Mouthpiece in Chief, Josh Earnest calls her out for “false criticism,” as reported by Jordan Fabian at The Hill.

Alabama senator Jeff Sessions, a Republican, has written a letter to President Barack Obama regarding the request that Congress "fast-track" legislation on Trade Promotion Authority. Sessions says he has a number of questions Congress should expect answers to before the body agrees to "yield its…

Most of the time the International Trade Commission makes the news -- in these pages, at least -- it’s because of its enforcement of anti-dumping rules that do little but boost the price of items such as steel and sugar for U.S. consumers. However, on Tuesday, the Commission will hold what promises…

Hillary Clinton is against Barack Obama's trade policy, the Huffington Post reports:

Elizabeth Warren ripped the Obama administration for disagreeing with her on trade. Warren made the comments on Twitter.

After China supplanted Japan in 2011 as the world’s second-largest economy, some China scholars, as well as pundits and economists, began forecasting when it would supplant the United States as the largest. Extrapolating China’s remarkable 9-10 percent average annual growth in the prior three…

The right and left are moving towards each other, in a sort of pincers movement designed to destroy the army of free traders pressing Congress to give President Obama what is known as fast-track authority. That would permit him to put any trade deals he negotiates with eleven Pacific Rim countries…

Had enough good economic news to see you through the holidays? Good. But if you plan to ask, “Please, sir, I want some more” you might be in store for your own Oliver Twist moment. Here’s why:

Senator Rand Paul has an op-ed in Time magazine making the case for normalizing diplomatic relations with Cuba as Barack Obama has proposed. It’s a reasonable objective for U.S. policy and there’s a good case to be made that the embargo on Cuba is anachronistic.

It is mandatory for economists to point out that one data point does not make a trend. We then all-too-often fill space with, er, a discussion of one data point, most usually the monthly report on job creation. Not being one to defy convention, I will report that Friday’s jobs report was a yawner.…

An event taking place this morning on Capitol Hill: "The Weekly Standard will join with the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) to host a policy forum examining the impact of India’s recent presidential election on efforts to rebuild U.S.–India trade and investment ties. Moderated by Weekly…

President Obama will leave Japan without a vital trade deal. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was supposed to be wrapped last autumn, and the president’s spring trip to Asia—the one he’s currently on—was supposed to be the victory lap.

Free traders are ecstatic. Negotiators at the 9th World Trade Organization ministerial conference in Bali cheered, hugged, and wept at what they see as the successful culmination of their recent round of talks. “A giant step for businesses large and small,” enthused the CEO of UPS. The…

As Congress moves ahead with the farm bill -- legislation that has historically been full of (figurative) pork -- there's one really obvious measure that needs to be eliminated. A new program that will require that catfish be monitored by the Department of Agriculture. Catfish, like all fish…

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior editor Lee Smith on President Obama's puzzling new Iran strategy.

Here’s a TTIP for you. No, that’s not a typo missed by our ever-vigilant editors. It stands for Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, what British prime minister David Cameron calls a “once-in-a-generation prize” that can create two million jobs on both sides of the Atlantic, and Sir…

"Trade makes the cake bigger so everyone can benefit.” So advised our distinguished visitor, British prime minister David Cameron, on the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal.

Free trade might not be the first casualty of an American election campaign, but it is right up there in the top rank. President Obama is bashing Mitt Romney for sending jobs to China when he ran Bain Capital, and Romney is returning the favor by accusing Obama of failing to label China a currency…

As the New York Times reports, "The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday fined Google $22.5 million to settle charges that it bypassed privacy settings in Apple’s Safari browser to show advertisements, and violated an earlier privacy settlement with the agency."

Perhaps the best way to understand China’s trade policy is to consult professional China watchers who always accuse mere economists of ignoring “context.” The Chinese regime is in transition to a new generation of leaders; a scandal has led to the purging of Bo Xilai and the arrest of his wife in…

Xi Jinping, the heir apparent to the leadership of the Chinese Communist regime, came to America to meet the president, dine with the vice president, visit a farm in Iowa—following in the 1959 footsteps of Nikita Khrushchev—and attend a basketball game in Los Angeles. The Iowa visit was designed to…

Some fear America is about to go protectionist. Others fear it won’t. Where you stand on this issue depends on where you sit. Sit in the chair of the CEO of a major exporter, and you fear protectionism and the ever-rising spiral of retaliations. Sit in the chair of the president of a trade union,…

In her remarks to the 41st Washington Conference on the Americas this past May, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared the Western Hemisphere “vital” to U.S. interests, adding that Latin America and the United States “will rise or fall together in the 21st century.” Unfortunately, the Obama…

During Tuesday night’s debate in New Hampshire, moderator Karen Tumulty challenged Mitt Romney on his recent tough talk on China. Romney says China is a “currency manipulator” and argues that, by setting unfair prices and allowing the theft of American intellectual property, the Chinese government…

Better to war-war than to jaw-jaw, to stand Winston Churchill’s remark on its head. The United States Senate and the trade unions are not alone in believing that we have been jaw-jawing with China for too many years, while it continues to take jobs from America by manipulating its currency,…

The president finally submitted trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama to Congress. "The series of trade agreements I am submitting to Congress today will make it easier for American companies to sell their products in South Korea, Colombia, and Panama and provide a major boost to…

In today's Wall Street Journal, Dan Blumenthal and Michael Mazza note that the China's growing military might should give American leaders something to think about with regard to our defense budget:

Despite high unemployment, the Obama administration has been slow to come up with an effective trade policy. It’s seemingly been trying with Colombia, Panama and South Korea, but its lack of success is startling.

It is, in a way, unsurprising that the president gave Bogota a brief nod during his State of the Union address. After all, In 2010 State of the Union address, the president claimed, “we will strengthen our trade relations in Asia and with key partners like South Korea and Panama and Colombia.” And,…

Some 53 percent of Americans now say they don’t much like free trade, compared with 32 percent a decade ago. In part that is due to unhappiness with the jobs situation. Today’s jobs report might have cheered specialists who dig beneath the headline numbers: 64,000 private sector jobs were created…

It’s the policies, stupid. That should be the guiding light for everyone trying to figure out the course of the U.S. economy for the rest of the year. As things now stand, in the absence of any dramatic policy shift, the economy should continue on its present path—slow growth, a bit of job creation…

Chinese citizens can’t vote in national elections. Not at home. And, of course, not in America. American citizens can. That combination of circumstances is likely to have an effect on U.S. trade policy as Congress settles in for the final weeks before the November 2 elections. President Obama and…

In recent years, Latin America’s trade with India, the world’s largest democracy, has grown much more slowly than its trade with China. However, the Latin Business Chronicle notes that “an increasing number of Indian companies are now looking at Latin America as the ‘next frontier.’” The quote…